


You'll Not Feel the Drowning

by anxiousAnarchist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Rose and Dave are 'rails, What Have I Done, What horrors have I wrought
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-14
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 02:23:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is weird, because she looks so much like Vriska, like Vriska if she was let loose for twenty years, buffeted by too much alcohol and unkindness and death.</i>
</p>
<p>Ten years after Sburb, John finds himself on Mindfang's ship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You are never, ever letting Dave experiment on his time powers with you again.

No, oh egbert come on just this once, no cajoling from Jade that this will be totally cool!!! Nope, from now on, there will be precisely zero time travel shenanigans for you. 

This is what happens. This is what happens when the four of you get drunk together and try to show off. You remember Rose all hazy, telling you what was going to happen next, second by second. Jade suddenly making your house two times bigger. Dave staggering from minute to minute, and not in that order. You remember that split second before everything shifted weird, when Rose snapped suddenly sharp, her eyes wide, a word of warning on her lips. 

But she was too late, and now you're sitting on top of a trunk, swinging your feet from side to side like the dumb fuck you are, trying to let the last vestiges of alcohol wear off. The room's squeaking and rocking lazily, back and forth, back and forth. At first you thought, jeez how drunk am I? but no, it's a cabin on a ship, you're pretty sure. A nice one, too. Lots of velvet curtains and heavy gold and brass fixtures. There's a whole stack of swords leaning against one of the walls, and a few heavy tomes scattered here and there.  

You tried to open one of the trunks in the room but you couldn't manage, which is just as well, because you realized the books were in Alternian so the rainbow stripes on the trunks probably weren't paint but blood. 

So yeah, that's how much you're sort of fucked right now! You don't know, maybe you can talk the trolls into -

You sigh, and put your head in your hands. It's pounding, the metallic tang in the air and the sea salt smell and the leftovers of all that rum are still roiling around, all together, and you, for the life of you, can't figure how to spin this one in your mind, can't figure out, really, how you're going to get back home. It's not that you're afraid of trolls - as much as Karkat's tried to get you to be - no, still, not really. It's that you're not sure how, even if they were the most sympathetic trolls in the world, they could get you back on Earth.

Well, you might as well try and figure out where you are. Luckily, Kanaya managed to teach you all a little written troll (and Karkat was more than willing to educate you on a thousand different insults, mostly by hurling them at you so many times you got to understanding what he was saying) , so you should be able to muster out some.

But as soon as your hand hits the cover of the book the door flies open and you freeze and turn your head and the most weirdly beautiful but also incredibly fucking frightening troll woman you have ever seen is standing there, looking at you like you are a bug to be squashed, or else put in a jar and kept to study.

This is really saying something, you think! Because prior to this, you knew pretty much all of the prettiest and scariest troll ladies there were. 

"What the fuck?" she hisses.

That's good! That's a phrase you are really, really familiar with.

"Uh, hi," you choke out. Your Alternian is soft and sylibant, you've never managed to grind your mouth into the right poses, to speak from the back of your throat like words were a deep rumbling thunder, but it's close enough, you think.  

She draws something out of your pocket, and you recognize those dice, Vriska's d8s, you'd know them anywhere.

 

\--

 

After everything, after the Scratch and Lord English and the careful crafting of a new universe all bright and shiny, when all the debts were paid and all the bodies were being buried, Terezi walks up to you. More solemn than usual. She holds her cane like a staff, and you aren't sure what she's after.

"Hey," you say. You're bone tired, and your arms hurt from carrying your hammer, but the wind is fresh and the people you love most - most of the people you love most - are still alive. You haven't  seen anyone die today, that makes it a very good day.

You see her hesitate for a second. You've never seen her hesitate before. "John," she says. (She also never calls you John) "I - Did Karkat ever inform you, of the circumstances surrounding Vriska's death?"

You both wince at the name.

You know that probably the only other person who cared as much as you did about Vriska was Terezi, and that's why you don't hold it against her, her decision to kill her. If Terezi did it, you know it was just, and you know it was hard, and you know that you'd do anything to undo it all. 

"Yeah," you say. She looks away. "No," you say. "No I - I don't know what I'd do in the same place."

"Probably not commit murder," she says, and her tone is flat and slick as ice, and her hands are shaking a little as she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a little bag, hands it to him.

 You open it. Inside, there are eight eight sided die, all Vriska's shade of blue. 

"What are these?" you ask.

Terezi stands up straighter, as if the dice had been a lodestone that she'd just thrown off. "The Fluorite Octet. They were Vriska's prized possession, and they -"

"No," you say, rolling them around in your hand. "no, yeah, I remember these, she sent me the captcha to make Zillyhoo." You look up and Terezi looks a little sad and so you clench your fist around the dice and say "Sorry, keep going."

She breathes again. "Yeah. So. They were what she always used in battle. Always. And they used to be her ancestor's, too."

"I thought you guys didn't know your family," you say. The dice glimmer. 

"No," she says. "We don't. But an ancestor is someone who shares our symbol and our position on the hemospectrum. Vriska happened upon some of her ancestor's possessions once, by -" she pauses, the next words come out bitter. "By _luck_. Her ancestor was a feared pirate, an awful woman on all accounts, the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang." 

You remember that name. "Oh. That's what she told me her name was, before. Before she told me who she was." 

You tip the dice, gently, back into the bag. There's an awkward silence between the two of you. You've never talked to each other for this long. You know Terezi blames herself for Vriska, for what happened, not just the death but everything before. You can see the wheels turning in her head, sometimes, just the way her face falls a little, and you can tell she's thinking, if I killed her earlier, or if I reasoned with her, if I stopped her, would Tavros be alive? Would Feferi and Eridan and Sollux and Nepeta and Equius be alive too? 

She took all that responsibility into her hands, but she's still your age, she doesn't know how to wear it any better.  

"Thank you, Terezi," you whisper. "I really do appreciate it."

"She would have wanted you to have them," says Terezi, blinking rapidly. You've never seen her cry, and you're going to pretend she isn't if she starts up now. 

Terezi runs a hand through her madcap hair. You've never seen her this serious for this long. "You've got to understand something, John. Our ancestors - they're more than just people who share our blood color and our symbol. They're so much like us." She laughs a little, bitter. "Do you know what Karkat's ancestor did?"

You shake your head.  

"Apparently, right before he died, he said something known as the Vast Expletive."

You both laugh a little. 

"Also, he was Troll Jesus," she adds, as an afterthought, which takes you aback a little because, uh, you didn't know one of your friends was basically the descendant of Troll Jesus! That's sort of weird!" 

"That explains so much," you say, laughing harder.

"Yeah," she says.  "But, the point is, a lot of people, they feel as if they're doomed or fated or - or whatever, to do the same thing their ancestors did. Make the same friends, the same mistakes. Die the same way. Do you understand? I am not sure if there's a human equivalent to this." 

You nod. "Yeah, it's the same way with uh, our lususes? Lusii? And our parent's lusus, and you know, further back. People think they're going to be just like their father or mother -" 

"The male lusus and the female lusus?" asks Terezi. Human family is hard, and the trolls still don't really understand.

Another nod of your head. "So that's something people worry about a lot. So I get it."

"My ancestor," and here Terezi's voice loses its sandpaper rattle entirely, becomes not the voice of an insanely delighted seer of all, but that of a young girl "her name was Neophyte Redglare, I used to Flarp as her when Vriska did Mindfang, anyway, the point is, Redglare was killed by Mindfang, after Redglare dragged her to court, and then Mindfang ends up getting killed by Tavros's ancestor." She shrugs. "Funny, I guess. We switched places." 

"I get it," you say.

"Fuck," says Terezi. "I don't even know why I told you that story."

But you do. She's trying to say, I wanted to do what she would have done. She was trying to say, I wanted to fix my ancestor's mistakes. I wanted to make her proud. I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't, and maybe, just a little maybe, I was after revenge. But she's also saying it was sad, and hard, and it did hurt, does hurt, will hurt. 

She's trying to say that it wasn't a decision she took lightly.

So you pull her into a hug, because she's still standing like she expects you to pull out Zillyhoo and bash her good, and that's not fair, no one should hold onto guilt like this for something that probably did, in the end, save the universes, as much as you don't want to admit it. "No," you whisper. "I get it. You felt like you had to do it. You felt like it was the right thing to do. It probably was."

She's digging her sharp hands into your back, and her head's buried into your shoulder, and man, you never really realized how tiny she was until now. "I miss her," she chokes out. "I miss her so much." 

You're man enough (okay, you're like thirteen or whatever, jeez!) to admit you're crying too. "I know. Me too." 

You run a hand over her sharp shoulderblades.

"It's not fair," she whispers. "We were friends. It's not fair."

No, it's not. Nothing has been, for a while.

 

\---

 

And now it's ten years later, and you've never stopped carrying the dice around. 

You don't use them for anything. You just hold onto them. In your pocket, sometimes. Oh a string around your neck, though Dave has informed you that that looks extremely silly.

You just don't feel right leaving them somewhere. 

So now, as she's preparing to throw down her dicekind, all glinting blue and diamonds, you tug the little velvet bag  Terezi gave you out from around your neck, and pull it open, fishing out one die. They're worn from centuries lying in dust, and from the way Vriska treated them, the way she treated everything, with absolute certainty and more than a little roughness. 

That stops her. 

"What are those?" she says.

"They're your dice," you say. Think fast, Egbert. Okay, you can totally do this, right? She's Vriska? But different? "Well, sort of. They're your dice from the future. I'm not from here I'm from three universes over, and these belonged to your descendent -"

She smacks you then. You realize that you were talking in English, not Trollish, and it hurts because she doesn't fuck around, you think there might be welts on your face from where her rings hit.

Her teeth are shiny and sharp. "Answer me." 

This is weird, because she looks so much like Vriska, like Vriska if she was let loose for twenty years, buffeted by too much alcohol and unkindness and death. Her hair is a little salt-crusted, her face wind-worn and sharp. She's wearing an eyepatch too. (You miss her, you miss her so much. This is almost like having her back, almost.) You reach out a hand to touch her, to make sure she's real, but she grabs your wrist, whip fast. "Who are you?" she asks, and her voice is like knives. 

It's a good question, even if you don't really know the answer anymore. 

You choose your words carefully. Her claws are sharp and biting, they're leaving marks on your arm, the blood welling up bright candy red. Her gaze is unflinching.

"I know all your secrets," you say, pronouncing the Trollish carefully, as sharply and deeply as you can. "And I know all your mistakes. I know who betrays you, and I know who kills you."

You look her dead in the eye, try and channel everything the trolls told you about how Alternia worked, try to remind yourself, though it's contrary to your nature, to not show weakness. And you raise your bleeding wrist, let her see the alien color of your blood. Mindfang will have never have seen that before, you know. Maybe that, your pink skin, your odd die, will be enough to keep you alive. 

"I'm not from around here," you say.  "Let me help you fix your mistakes. You're good - but wouldn't you rather be the best?"

She gives you an appraising glance. "What's in it for you?"


	2. Chapter Two

"You did what?"

This is the most awkward phone conversation you've had since that time Rose's mom tried to propose to you when you were fifteen. 

"You heard me," you say. "Witch of Space plus Knight of Time equals one Egbertian presently located who the fuck knows where, I am a colossal fuckup, please Mr. Vantas come shit all over me." 

"Don't fucking tempt me," he growls. "So you have no idea where John is? You just sort of up and drunkenly cast him out into the ether?"

You shove your shades aside so you can rub your eyes. You haven't slept since it happened, and the drunk hazy confusion had long worn away, replaced by the fuzzy beginnings of your old friend mr. hangover. "Yes, that's the general idea."

There's a pause on the other end of the line, and then Karkat sighs. "Okay, so we're going to get him back."

\---

The question was how, exactly. 

\---

**\---turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]---**

TG: yo vantas.  
TG: vantas.  
TG: i still have your handle in my contacts so i know that whole shit wasnt a dream or anything  
TG: just tryin to get a body count here okay dude  
TG: so fuckin answer   
CG: I'M HERE, I'M HERE. KEEP YOUR UNBELIEVABLY DORKY PANTS ON.  
CG: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?   
TG: back in my apartment  
TG: or i guess like a replica of my apartment since this isnt the same . . . universe.  
TG: what about you you on alternia    
CG: NO I'M SOMEWHERE IN WHATEVER VERSION OF EARTH THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE.   
TG: earth 3.0   
CG: YEAH. HOPEFULLY WE DIDN'T FUCK EVERYTHING UP. BUT NO, NOT ALTERNIA, THANK GOG.   
TG: thank us   
CG: ONE THING WE DID RIGHT   
TG: godly fist bump  
TG: i thought youd miss your planet  
TG: since everything humans do or touch or think is tainted with the smell of hoofbeast dick and failure etc etc   
CG: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA  
CG: AHAHHAHAHA   
CG: NO.  
CG: I WAS A DEAD TROLL WALKING. I WOULD HAVE BEEN LUCKY TO MAKE IT ANOTHER HALF SWEEP.  
CG: BIGGEST  
CG: FUCKING  
CG: RELIEF   
TG: more than that growth spurt you finally got    
CG: FUCK OFF STRIDER  
CG: . . .  
CG: SO THAT ALL REALLY HAPPENED.  
CG: IT WASN'T SOME SORT OF SOPOR INDUCED HALLUCINATION.   
TG: naw man  
TG: and i got the scars to prove it   
CG: HOLD ON LET ME CHECK  
CG: YEAH ME TOO. HOLY SHIT SOME OF THESE ARE NEW.   
TG: i wasnt really sure you were gonna make it out of that honestly  
TG: i mean i wasnt sure if i was going to make it  
TG: if any of us were going to make it  
TG: but you were getting hit pretty hard   
CG: STRIDER, ARE YOU CHECKING ON ME?  
CG: IS THAT WHAT THIS IS?  
CG: SOMETHING DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO SOME SORT OF WARM WORRY-LIKE FEELINGS?   
TG: so what if i am  
TG: anyway i need to check on harley  
TG: lemme know if you ever figure out where the fuck you are  
TG: me n rose are trying to coordinate some mass meeting   
TG: catch you on the flipside kk.   
CG: HEY HOLD ON A SECOND.   
TG: what   
CG: I JUST WANTED TO SAY -  
CG: YOU DID GOOD IN THERE. IN THE GAME.  
CG: AND I KNOW YOU HAD TO DIE A LOT MORE THAN   
TG: no shit   
CG: HEY SHUT YOUR STINKING TRAP FOR FIVE SECONDS WHILE I'M STILL STUPID ENOUGH TO SAY THIS SHIT.  
CG: ANYWAY I KNOW YOU SAVED MY ASS MORE THAN ONCE.  
CG: PROBABLY SAVED ALL OF OUR ASSES.   
CG: SO THANKS FOR THAT.   
TG: yeah well  
TG: - and prepare to emblazon this particular bit of dialogue on your fuckin think pan for all of eternity cause its the only time i will every say it -  
TG: you did a good job too. you were a great leader.   
CG: NO I WASN'T.   
TG: hey your turn to shut up.  
TG: you were  
TG: a great  
TG: leader  
TG: you nubby horned shortass piece of shit  
TG: wed all be permanent residents of corpse city if it hadnt been for you  
TG: you okay man  
TG: its been like three minutes   
CG: YOUR CONCERN IS TOUCHING  
CG: THAT WAS SARCASTIC, BY THE WAY.   
CG: . . . THANKS. I GUESS.   
TG: ok feelings jam over this is fucking embarrassing.   
CG: AGREED.  
CG: I'M GOING TO TRY AND FIND TEREZI.   
TG: ok  
TG: talk to rose when you get your shit together  
TG: bye man   
CG: BYE

**\--- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] ---**

\---

The first thing you really notice about Karkat is that he's a lot less loud in person - you'd expected him to always be in screaming-mode, eyes and veins bulging, throat hoarse.

No, sometimes he's quiet as all hell. Sometimes he sits huddled in the corner of one of the innumerable fucking grey rooms on the asteroid. He'll just sort of curl up and stare off in the distance, barely really stirring. You wonder what he's thinking once and then you realize it's probably dead bodies and then you try not to think about it anymore. 

When he talks to Gamzee he is very very calm. You never thought you'd see the same boy who threatened you with physical violence if you continued your wanton flirting sit in the lap of a giant murderous alien juggalo, stroking said juggalo's hair. 

But there's a lot of things that don't make sense in your life any more and Karkat is only one small piece of that.

For example, you and Rose know more about each other than any two humans should. She cuts your hair when it gets too long and teaches you how to sew. When she gets her period she comes to you to complain and to beg for cups of tea because both of you are too weary to spend five hours explaining the ins and outs of the human reproductive system to alien children. By the end of three years you are horrifyingly comfortable with this. You teach her how to sword fight. A decision you come to regret, because she is terrifyingly good at strifing. For a whole month Rose turns to the bottle under the delusion that none of you will mind, and you try to stalk the burgeoning addiction out of her. Sometimes she lets you read her wizard slash. Sometimes you let her read your lyrics.

Terezi says the two of you are D1SGUST1NGLY P4L3 but whatever. 

\---

TG: so operation massive fuckup is a go i guess   
GG: yep!!!  
GG: i'm a little nervous : (   
GG: shit jade that is not the thing to tell a man who youre about to physically move across three universes  
GG: omg no silly!!!  
GG: not about that : )  
GG: about you and karkat on alternia.   
TG: aw come on you know we got dis.  
TG: all up in that business like the fuckin knighs of the round table.   
GG: i know you can handle yourselves   
GG: but i don't like my boys being in danger! D:    
TG: psh   
GG: *eyeroll*   
TG: talkin to the most badass dude in the universe  
TG: more than one universe   
GG: *eyes roll right out of my head*   
TG: pshhhhh   
GG: you two aren't going to fight are you : (   
TG: ...   
GG: hey dave it's been like five minutes are you okay????   
TG: Okay look Jade, I am breaking my typing quirk just so that you completely understand this, and how fucking serious I am.   
GG: D:   
TG: As much as Karkat and I might have issues with each other occasionally, or have a clash of personalities, we would never put that in front of our friends.  
TG: Do you really think Vantas cares more about bitching at me than John?  
TG: Do you think I do?  
TG: Jesus fucking Christ, we're not fifteen years old anymore. We can put aside whatever problems we might have for the sake of saving John. We're talking about his life here. And we know that. And we're not going to jeopardize that.    
GG: okay, okay, sorry   
TG: naw its cool i guess  
TG: i just  
TG: come on.  
TG: i thought you trusted me more than that. 

\---

You and Karkat only ever got into one fight, while you were on the meteor, but people sort of tended to fixate on it.

Rose says she's pretty sure it worked its way into the mythology of this new earth, it was so memorable. (She might have a point. Frogs and wizards and trickster gods with buckteeth were all sort of recurring themes in fables now, after all.)

"Epic fucking poems have been writ," says Rose. "It is the stuff of legends."

"It wasn't that big of a deal," you say.

"Then shadow-eyed Strider, with his broken sword,/ did the blood-red god offend," says Rose.

"Please don't fucking quote it," you groan. "I get it, I get it."

Rose tilts her head and smiles, brushes a strand of your hair back in place. 

"No, you really don't." 

 

\---

Preparation takes a week and this is in close contest for the worst week of your life which is sort of fucking saying something.

Your Cap'n Crunch is growing steadily soggier. Karkat's got the box propped in his lap, eating individual pieces like popcorn.

"No, no," he says, crunching one piece in between razor-sharp teeth. "Say it again."

"I've said it sixty fucking times I think I'm close enough."

Karkat throws a piece of cereal into the air and deftly catches it with his tongue, a trick you've never been able to teach yourself. "Do you know what they'll do to you if they find out you're an alien? First of all, I'd be culled right away, so thanks for that."

"No probs," you say. Yeah, the cereal's definitely turning into a sad peanut buttery sludge now. "What are hatefriends for?"

He snorts and rolls his eyes. "Yeah, well, they won't just cull you. Remember all the horror stories you and John told me about that Area 51 place?"

"Yeah," you say. 

"Well, imagine that. Now imagine instead of being run by humans, who are soft and weak-willed and occasionally display a modicum of mercy and pity, imagine it's being run by trolls." 

You're both silent for a minute. You think it dawns on you both at the same precise moment that John's there; unprepared, unprotected. He could be getting vivisected right this moment.

"We're going to get him back," you say, only half to Karkat. "He's smart. He's a big boy. He's charmed the pants off half the trolls in existence before."

(Karkat grimaces, for a moment, at the pants bit. He probably thinks you didn't notice.)

"Well, and he was always a shit ton better at Alternian than the rest of you." 

"You're such a slave driver," you say. 

"I don't want to hear a word out of your mouth unless it's in the ancient godforsaken tongue of my ancestors."

"Fuck you," you say in Alternian.

(It was the first phrase you learned in Alternia. Big surprise.)

"Now fucking say what I told you to say," says Karkat, throwing pieces of cereal at you.

\---

"How do I look?" you ask Rose, toweling off your hair.

She wrinkles her nose. "Like I'm very, very relieved that I never succumbed to my teenage woegothic temptation to dye my hair black."

"You're wounding my girlish ego," you say.

"You look like a phantasm, Strider. You look like you are actually composed of paper."

You plop down on her bed. "Okay makeup me." 

It takes entirely too long to get your skin to the appropriate trollish hue. Rose slips on the band that holds your faux horns, and sighs. "As long as you don't get too close to anyone, and stay out of bright light, I suppose you'll be all right." 

You feel the smooth hard surface of your painted horns. "Wish these coulda been bigger."

"Oh please."

"As long as they're bigger than Karkat's."

"I'm guessing I don't have to warn you to keep your sunglasses on." 

"I think I'm actually offended here."

Rose hands you a washcloth, and you start to scrub the makeup off your face, your chest, your arms. It smears brown-grey over your old pinkish skin. She slips the horns off your head, sets them gently aside.

"Be careful," she says.

"Look, getting some grey shit on your bedspread is pretty much an inevitability at this point."

She grabs you by the thrat, gently, runs a finger over the bob of your pulse. "That's not what I mean." 

Rose tips your chin up. Her eyes are steely and her skin is ashy and she is every bit the god you knew her as. "Don't die," she says. "Bring him back."

You grasp her wrist and her resolve slips a bit, enough for you to pull her into your lap and wrap your bicolored arms around her.

"You're going to ruin my shirt," she whispers into your shoulder.

"Like you give a fuck," you whisper back.

"You're stupid."

"No, you're stupid."

Rose's head snaps up suddenly. "What if I went with you?"

Panic shoots through you like a jagged sword. "No."

Her grip on your back tightens. "You think I couldn't keep up with you two?" 

You laugh. "No, don't feed me that bullshit. It's not that, it's just - I can't -"

"You can't what?"

"I can't lose you too."

Her grip slackens, and she pulls you closer. "I know. I can't either. I just can't stand to sit here being useless. But you can't deny I'd be a valuable asset. I'm cooler headed than the both of you, and I have more than enough resources at my disposal."

"No," you say. "Rose Jane Lalonde, if you even think about going a shade of grimdark for this stupid fucking mission, I will secretly pee in every one of your drinks for the rest of your life. I will stand outside your bedroom and rap you to sleep. I will publish your wizard slash." 

Her hands curl in the small of your back. Rose's hair always smells like peppermint. "I wasn't planning on that." 

You think of Rose, how tiny she seems in your arms. You think of how she stood next to you while the both of you burned alive, you think of the ever-present fire in her eyes. You think about what it would mean to lose that, and then you think about what it would mean to not have her by your side for even an instant. 

"You know I'm going to go whether you want me to or not," she says. "But I'd rather be with you."

Rose kisses your cheek. She's absolving you of guilt about this, of responsibility. She's saying, it's okay, no one is allowed to blame you for this going wrong too, if it does. 

"Jade is going to be fucking pissed," you say.

\----

GG: strider!!!!!!! > : (  
GG: i am fucking pissed!   
TG: yeah see told you rose 

\---

"Oh no," says Karkat.

"Oh yes," says Rose.

Karkat's wise enough to realize that Rose is and will always be an immovable object, once she sets her mind to it. "If you get to bring your moirail, I get to bring mine."

You laugh. "Dude come on you know that's not even an option. You're not stupid."

His shoulders slump. "Yeah, I know."

"Hey dude," you say. "I know. It's rough. But Rose is the best damn swordfighter next to me in the world -"

"Better," says Rose. "Remember last Christmas?"

You stick out your tongue. She sticks hers out right back. "And she's a dab hand at Alternian too. She's good at planning and she's got skills we don't and also she's just not going to fucking let us leave without her."

"All right," says Karkat. "All right." 

\---

Jade hugs you fiercely as you stand in her foyer. "You better watch yourself, Strider!" she says into your shoulder. "And you better bring me back a souveniour, too!! I am never going to forgive you for leaving me behind if you don't!"

"Aw come on, Jade, you know somebody's gotta watch the kids," you say. "Plus,"

"Dog ears, no good with melee combat, blah blah blah boring useless shit like that." She releases you from her death grip, and pinches your cheek. "You just remember who's bringing you home."

Jade walks over to Karkat then, to thoroughly envelop him in her arms. Growth spurt or not, he'd never been taller than Jade. 

Rose and Kanaya are off in the corner, Rose saying something softly to her. They kiss. You look away. She deserves a few minutes of privacy. 

"You fucking behave yourself," you hear Vantas say to Makara. "If I come back here and find out that you've managed to slaughter the rest of our pitiful excuse for a species, we are not going to Burning Man this year."

"That's harsh, brother," says Makara. "That's real motherfucking harsh." 

You watch him out of the corner of your eye. "Yeah well," he says, holding Gamzee close. His eyes are shut, he's completely enveloped by Gamzee's gangly oversized limbs. "Then don't fucking do it." 

"Enough fucking around!" says Jade. Everyone in the room looks desolate. "Dave, you ready?" 

"Always."

"Okay, back up everybody."

The others all press themselves up against the wall. You and Rose and Karkat all line up facing Jade. The pack on your back feels heavy as all hell as you wrap one arm around Rose's waist and another around Karkat's shoulders. 

"Quick, get us out of here before Vantas tries to make a speech."

That earns you a nervous laugh from around the room.

"Woof woof, Harley," you say.

She winks, and you drag yourself back, back, back. 

\----

You land in a field, the blue dark sky big above you. 

"Body count," you say, as soon as you get your breath back. "Does everyone have the appropriate number of appendages? Vantas, is your strange alien genitalia still all in order?" 

Rose stands and runs a hand through her hair, then pulls you up by the shoulders. "Yes," Karkat says. "But please just leave me to die here."

"Aw come on man you such a big baby you can't handle a little interuniversal time jump like that?" you ask. Your voice is still shaky, like your lungs still haven't quite made the journey with you yet. 

The two moons hang heavy in the sky. Karkat stares at them, wide eyed and open mouthed. You clap him on the back. "You okay, man?"

He shakes his head. "Yes, of course, fine." He's switched to Alternian. "And don't let me catch you speaking English any more." 

"Yeah? Or what?"

Rose has already walked down the ridge of the hill, and now she turns to call back to you. "Gentlemen" she says. "Come on, we've got miles to go before we sleep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psyche. We'll be bouncing back and forth in-between these kids and the SS Mindfang every chapter.


End file.
